Moralia in Job 966

— Folly is twofold; one joined to the highest nobility. — We must know that some within the holy Church are called foolish, but yet noble, while others are foolish and ignoble. For they are called foolish, but they cannot be ignoble, who, despising the prudence of the flesh, seek the folly that will profit them, and are raised up to the newness of an inner offspring by the nobility of virtue; who despise the foolish wisdom of the world, and covet the wise foolishness of God. For it is written: The foolishness of God is wiser than men (1 Cor. i, 25). This folly Paul admonishes us to grasp, saying:

If any man among you seem to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise (1 Cor. iii, 18). This folly they who have perfectly followed have merited to hear by the voice of Wisdom: You who have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the seat of His majesty, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt. xix, 28). Behold, forsaking temporal things, they have purchased the glory of eternal power. What therefore in this world is more foolish than to forsake one's own? And what in eternity is more noble than to come as judges with God? The nobility of these judges is recalled by the testimony of Solomon, when that is said which I have already mentioned above:

Her husband is noble in the gates, when he shall sit among the senators of the land (Prov. xxxi, 23). For he considers those very noble whom he calls senators. This nobility in himself Paul had beheld, when, joined by the Spirit to the kindred of the Creator, he said: Being therefore the offspring of God, we ought not to esteem the Divinity to be like to gold, or silver, or stone, the graving of art, and device of man (Acts xvii, 29). We are called the offspring of God, forsooth, not brought forth from His nature, but created by His Spirit and voluntarily, and recreated by adoption. So much therefore is each one raised to this nobility, in proportion as, through the image received, he is renewed by imitation unto His likeness. — Another folly is ignoble, by which the heavenly wisdom is forsaken.

— But on the contrary there are the foolish and ignoble, who, while, following themselves, they flee the heavenly wisdom, are lulled to sleep in their own ignorance as in the vileness of an abject offspring. For inasmuch as they understand not that for which they were created, so much also do they lose the kinship of the generosity received through the image. They are therefore foolish and at once ignoble, whom the servitude of the mind repels from the fellowship of the eternal inheritance. For it is written: Everyone that committeth sin is the servant of sin (John viii, 34). And by the voice of the excellent preacher it is said: The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God (1 Cor. iii, 19). They therefore who, while they savoured earthly things, were repelled from their inmost generosity, were at once both foolish and ignoble.

When many imitate the deeds of these men, they become the sons of the foolish and the base; and while they follow them in their thoughts and habits, they are both foolish, because they do not understand true wisdom, and base, because they are renewed by no liberty of the spirit. Yet these men, although they practise the deeds of the wicked, nevertheless for the most part hold in this life the places of the just, and reckon themselves to be sons of those whose offices they outwardly administer through a craving for honour. Holy rebuke calls them back to knowledge of themselves, so that, placed as they are amid depraved desires, they may take heed whose sons they are. For they are not the sons of those whose places they hold, but of those whose works they practise. Rightly then may it be said: The sons of fools and of base men. Whereupon it is fittingly added: